I am a college student in North Jersey, and I have - what I consider to be... - a pretty good idea for a startup. My issue, however, is that I can't find a single kid in the area who knows squat about rails or php.<p>I don't know very much about either language enough to make a real workable product, and since I am in school, I don't have the money to hire a free lancer, so I'm not really sure what to do. Aside from learning how to program, which I have been doing in every free second I have, and emailing every professor in the CompSci department, which turned up no leads, what options am I left with?
Sounds like you might not be ready to do a startup. Remember, it will consume <i>most</i> of your time.<p>Keep learning. Put up a prototype of your idea as soon as you can. Being able to wave a prototype at people will help attract talent -- hackers want to work with other good hackers.<p>Don't worry about losing the idea. There will be other ideas. As you've discovered, the secret is not having the perfect idea... it's having the skills to execute one idea after another.<p>Finally, don't expect profs in a CompSci department -- or any other academic department, really -- to have the first clue how to find someone who actually ships products for a living. ;) That's not really their job.
Don't be so stubborn about finding someone who knows php/Rails. Any programmer who knows something like C or Java can learn php or rails really well in a couple days max. Plus, maybe rails isn't the best choice for what you have in mind. Be flexible!
I think programming is a necessary skill for Computer Science students. However, that is not the only thing we are required to learn because it only complements knowledge in other areas ranging from theory of programming languages to computer architecture. Students might get to do the occasional programming project or two but usually they will not be involved in anything close to real life software development. I am not trying to discourage you but that is the reality I find myself in.